Latest Gear Live Videos

The Gear Live report on a possible Freescale buyout has just been confirmed. Freescale Semiconductor Inc., designer and manufacturer of embedded processors and peripherals, will be purchased by a consortium of private investment groups led by The Blackstone Group, and including The Carlyle Group, Permira Funds and Texas Pacific Group. At a $17.6 Million bottom line, this merger more than triples the value of the AMD-ATI merger that has been such huge corporate news thus far this year. The terms of the merger are a purchase price of $40 per share in cash, representing a premium of approximately 36% over Freescale’s average closing share price during the 30 trading days through September 8th, 2006.

Much like the AMD-ATI merger, the merger was approved unanimously by the board of directors, but still awaits shareholder and U.S. antitrust approvals. Freescale also has the option to shop around for a better offer from another party, but I’m guessing a 36% margin is going to be hard to beat.

Advertisement

So the big corporate news around the tech world right now is of course AMD’s acquisition of ATI. When the second biggest developer of PC processors acquires one of the biggest video processor developers in the world, that’s some big news. Well, equally as big a deal, but flying slightly below the radar, is a private buyout in the works for Freescale Semiconductor. Freescale, a former unit of Motorola, is one of the largest stand-alone makers of embedded chips and recently became the first semiconductor manufacturer to produce and sell magnetic random-access memory (MRAM) which has theoretical speeds well beyond current flash technology. Since they spun-off from Motorola in July 2004, they have grown 137%. Now, Freescale’s embedded devices are used everywhere from devices you use every day like cellular phones, TV’s, PDA’s and copy machines, to more specialized advanced devices like ECU’s and flight control systems.

The 16 billion dollar deal is being split amongst a group of private investment companies including Texas Pacific Group, Blackstone Group and Permira, according to the report. It is possible that the Carlyle Group and Bain Capital may also jump on the bandwagon. If this deal goes through, it will be the largest leveraged buyout in the tech sector to date.